2011-08-10

Life in a Wormhole: Escape from Nullsec #eveonline

The home system is quiet the day after the destruction of the Drake, and even two days later the sleepers still seems to be reeling under the onslaught that netted us some nice profit. Given that things are quiet here, our camera turns to Bre, alone in Curse, to see what kind of excitement see can drum up.

And the answer is... not much. She just can't take another slog through boring starter missions with the Angel Cartel and (once again) no one from her corp is doing anything within fourteen jumps of their alleged home system.

With either low-grade missions or 'nothing' as our options of what to do today, the habits born of wormhole living kick in, and I move Bre out of her Ishkur assault frigate and into Rorshach, one of her buzzard-class covert-ops recon ships for a little scanning.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll find, if I'll find anything out in nullsec, or what if anything I can do with a combat site if one happens to present itself, because all the combat sites in Curse are populated by npc members of the Angel corporation, and I suspect my Angel agents would frown if I blow up their poker buddies.

Still, I scan, because that's what I'm in the habit of doing, and after several systems with nothing of note, I finally get a hit from my probes and quickly resolve the familiar signature of a wormhole.

The gentle, reality-distorting wobble of the wormhole taunts me so...

Successful scanning doesn't make me any happier, however; finding a wormhole just reminds me of where I'd rather Bre was at, full time. I mean, it's not as though I can pack up my stuff and just fly it all into the first wormhole I find.

Actually...

Well, no, obviously I can't do that, but... wormhole systems are connected. This particular wormhole leads to a high-end, class 5 wormhole, which means that I'll probably be able to find another connection somewhere within that system, and then another one within the next system, and so on and so forth until...

Just maybe...

I might find a route out of nullsec and back to somewhere that's... else.

So begins the Great Route Scanning of '11. I won't lie -- I spend close to four hours exploring every possible route in and out of the wormhole constellation I had discovered. Eventually, I manage to string together a long series of wormhole jumps that will dump me out in a slightly less objectionable area of New Eden. It's not *great* by any means -- it's still lowsec, but it's closer to highsec by quite a bit, so I'll just fly back to where I started and --

Oh. Bugger, one of the wormholes in my tenuous chain collapsed. Dammit.

Right. Back to the wrong end of the path, then a long, long, LONG flight back through lowsec, highsec, and nullsec to my starting location.

It feels like a failure, except that I did actually succeed in finding a path out of null, and while I wasn't able to use it, it gives me hope that I'll eventually be able to get Bre out of Curse without begging help from the corporation I'd then be leaving.

But not today. I'm fried from all the scanning, and then the many dozens of jumps to get back to where I started, and I just want to park my ship and take a break.

Just...

Well, maybe one more system scan.

My probes go out, scouring the system next door to my nullsec bivouac (even though I already scanned the system earlier today and found nothing), and I come up with yet another wormhole. I'm in no mood to scan another long chain of wormhole system, but I check it out to at least see where it's going.

I hop through the wormhole and take a look at the constellation map. I'm only two stargate jumps from highsec space and a station. CONCORD reports little activity in the systems I'd be flying through -- no ship kills in the last 24 hours, that's promising...

Yes. I can do this.

I race back to the stations in Curse where I've stored my stuff, and begin packing, repacking, and finally moving ships and equipment, selling anything that isn't worth the effort to bring along. My route is only six jumps, which isn't far, until you multiply it eight or night times, both directions. My eyes start to blur from the repeated jump gate flashes and wormhole warbles, but with success so close at hand, I press on.

Finally, almost everything Bre owns is actually all in the same system, and in highsec, where it can be easily moved into our home system the next time the exit opens in this neighborhood.

That reminds me: where is the neighborhood? I was so busy moving stuff that I didn't even bother to look around and see where I'm at.

Until now.

Oh.

After all that, I take my bearings and realize I'm only three jumps away from Jita -- for all intents and purposes, a system that functions as both the Coruscant and Mos Eisley of New Eden space; for better or worse, the effective center of what passes for civilization in EVE (and what a revealing fact that is).

Had I tried to come here from my original location via normal space routes, it would have taken me fifty-six jumps, both ways: roughly four hours for a single round trip.

I did the same distance in about 10 minutes.

I'm tired, I didn't make any isk today, but I'm beyond pleased that my nullsec problem was, in the end, solved by a wormhole.